


The Ties of The Past

by IncessantCalibration



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 18:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5058766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncessantCalibration/pseuds/IncessantCalibration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new arrival, and an old friend, turns up at Skyhold to help the Inquisition and Dorian cannot help but spot an opportunity to play puppet-master with Commander Cullen's heart. However, when magic of the past, of fear and of love rears its ugly head, it is clear Dorian is handling powers far beyond even his control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ties of The Past

**Author's Note:**

> "I desire no future that will break the ties of the past."
> 
> \- George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

‘Is she always this late?’ enquired Inquisitor Lavellan.  
It had been a long while since Varric had dragged her out of bed to meet their newest guest, and even in summer, the mountain winds around Skyhold were enough to provide a significant chill.  
‘Calm yourself, Elfie, she won’t be long. You won’t be disappointed, I promise.’ Varric was often vague, and even more often sarcastic, but the wry grin that grew across his weathered cheeks harboured sincerity. ‘You see, right on cue!’  
Varric sauntered partially down the gate entrance only to brace himself for impact as a figure charged up the hill, arms spread wide. She careered into the dwarven smuggler, flinging her painfully thin arms around his stout neck, and they embraced, a splash of green and auburn, like summer colliding with autumn. After a long hug, the pair released and Varric pointed up to the Inquisitor still waiting by the portcullis gates. The visitor blushed a vibrant pink against her pale skin and pronounced elven markings, brushing herself down and regaining her composure after her slightly over exuberant entry.  
‘I am so so so sorry!’ pleaded the new girl as she approached the Inquisitor, fidgeting all the while, ’I’ve never met an Inquisitor before, I’m not really sure what to do. Should I bow?’  
‘This is Merrill,’ stated Varric, ‘and she’s always like this.’  
‘Oh my gosh where are my manners? Yes, I am Merrill,’ she paused for what seemed like an awfully long time. ‘Oh you’ve already said that.’  
The Inquisitor smiled and slowly approached Merill, like a handler approaching a nervous Halla, and brought her close just as Varric had. Merrill’s cheeks barely had time to recover as they flushed up once more.  
‘Any friend of Varric’s is a friend of mine, and I’m most glad of your aid, Merill,’ the elven leader whispered her ear. ‘Now let us show you around.’

After being reassured several times that her belongings were safe in her room, the Inquisitor had entrusted the tour of the fortress to the most eloquent and welcoming member of the Inquisition she could think of, Dorian.  
‘And this bit is a dump and shouldn’t be given the time of day, a bit like you actually…’ continued the dark tall mage. This was not the first snide remark the enchanter had made, and Merrill had had enough.  
‘Why don’t you like me, Dorian? I was asked to come here to help with the eluvians and I think it seems a bit rude to call me an “exasperating vacuous ignoramus” when we’ve only just met. Even though I’m still not entirely sure what that means.’  
‘My point exactly!’ gasped Dorian. ‘Your grasp of our language leads only as a precursor to your inferior intelligence I’m afraid.’ His voice coddled her like silk but the words were ripe with poison. He paused for a momentary sigh before continuing, ‘Listen here. The reason why I’m questioning the Inquisitor’s sense in bringing you here, is because I don’t exactly comprehend what she or that little smuggler see in you. I could call half a dozen equally gifted mages from Tevinter who could tell me just as much, and more, than what you, a Dalish dropout, would or could.’  
Just as Merrill was about to return the stingy foray of literal bombardment back with interest, albeit it probably less fancily she thought, Commander Cullen swung in the doorway.  
‘Dorian, I’ve been looking at those Avvar writings…’  
He stopped in his tracks. The words had seemed to die in his mouth as his eyes gorged themselves on the beautiful petite elven girl standing in front of him. Her sharp features lay starkly against her soft expression, like a thistle in a wind-swept field of grass and daisies. The girl looked down and kicked at her heels, every now and then glancing up to see if the broad, blonde man was still ogling her from the doorway. He was.  
‘Sorry unlike our elven guest, I’m actually not blessed with eternal life, so if you wouldn’t mind wrapping up what you were saying, my dearest man, for my sake at least?’ Dorian’s razor wit cut the tension like a knife, but he well knew the look Cullen had smothered all over his face. The Tevinter mage had felt that same way on only a few occasions and he was almost certain more than half of them had occurred in front of the mirror.  
‘Yes, perhaps another time, when you are less… tied down. Or busy, I meant busy.’  
The commander shot out of the room like a startled nug on lyrium, spinning out of the doorway and stumbling down the tight staircase. Dorian thought he could almost make out the sound of Cullen’s voice at the bottom, ‘Maker help me.’

After the tour had concluded, Dorian returned the meek elf back to her room, with her few possessions. Among them, Dorian couldn’t help but notice, was her staff. Dorian stood staring at the staff for only a split second before a smile, so wicked it could have bewitched the most fervent of Templars, formed across his tanned face, somehow disfiguring his perfect facial hair. He slowly turned to the girl, who was leaning against the windowsill, head cusped in her hands, looking out over the mountain vista that accompanied one of the best rooms in Skyhold. The way her petite body slumped heavily on the cold stone spoke of weakness, even sickness. Dorian had actually cut the tour short because the girl, who was as quiet as a mouse until she descended into one of her mindless babbles, was no longer descending into mindless babbling. He was, however, sure he knew exactly the diagnosis.  
‘Merill,’ began the enchanter, ‘I wish to go back on something I might have said. I understand it’s been a long journey, and you are very far from home,’ though he well knew home-sickness was not the problem, ‘and I wish to apologise for being quite as harsh as I was.’  
The girl barely stirred before replying, ‘That’s quite alright Dorian.’  
‘Well, you see, it isn’t. I want to make up for my mistake. Would you care to join me for dinner this evening?’ The voice of silk had returned. ‘There is a lovely spot in the gardens where I like to dabble in a bit of Wicked Grace with Cul-…. with Blackwall and I think it would be a perfect place for a  
chinwag over some roast Druffalo. Shall we say just after sunset?’  
At times, Dorian knew subtlety and persuasion were called for, but he also understood that bundling Merill through the door with his exuberant confidence would probably also do the trick.  
‘Errr, to be honest Dorian, I am not really feeling that hungr-‘  
‘Sunset it is! Wear your best. Or whatever you have that is best. Ta-ta!’  
And with a twizzle of his beard and a nonchalant wave of his hand, he was gone even quicker than Cullen had earlier in the morning.

‘Those Avvar really are fascinating!’  
Cullen leapt out of his skin, the heavy fur momentarily leaping off his broad shoulders, the papers tossed out of his hand and tumbled wide across the floor. Striding in through the open doorway and into Cullen’s room entered Dorian, childish joy emanating from his entire body.  
‘What are you blithering on about, mage? I’m trying to work!’  
The mage danced around the room, tracing each object with his finger, stopping only to raise a solitary eyebrow at the severed head of an oversized nug, mounted proudly on the wall. Finally, he answered the commander’s startled retort.  
‘Those writings? The ones I left you with?’  
‘Oh yes,’ began Cullen, ‘from what I can see-’  
‘Yes indeed,’ Dorian was in the mood for interrupting people, and coming awful close to a royal scolding. Dorian was not too old for a good smacking, Cullen thought. ‘I was thinking would you be available to discuss such trivial documents later? Perhaps,’ Dorian’s second eyebrow joined the other in its lofty position, ‘sunset? I thought the gardens?’

Twilight hung in the air; the day’s light fading behind the enormous mountainous peaks shielding the old elven fortress. Night was creeping in, like a parent checking on a child. Meanwhile, Dorian was all sunshine. ‘I simply can’t hold on any longer! I’m going to burst!’  
The necromancer had gathered half the Inquisition’s inner circle to watch the moment of magic he had crafted. Once he had cleared out the garden, ushering Mother Giselle from her usual patrol of her botanical quarter, and laid the only table with Orlesian candles and the finest cuisine, he began his story to the gathered group about his remarkable skill in creating this love match.  
‘You’re the shitting best!’ sniggered Sera.  
‘You’re a genius!’ giggled Varric.  
‘You’re a fool,’ tutted Cassandra.  
‘Oh give me some credit, Seeker. The elven girl wasn’t wearing her staff, he has no idea she’s a mage! And perhaps a little smooch in the gardens might move things along a bit.’  
The familiar rolling of eyes and disgruntled noise came from Cassandra, but Dorian was fully expecting such a response.  
‘You wait till she decides to cast an entropic spell in the middle of the second course,’ came a voice from behind the group. Like a cat on the prowl, slinking between the tactically organised shrubbery camoflage on the balcony overlooking the gardens, appeared Solas.  
‘Didn’t think this would be your type of game, Chuckles,’ said Varric.  
‘I am privy to a small amount of trickery when I’m not working of course.’  
Dorian licked his lips in anticipation; everything was going according to plan. Now all he needed was the star-crossed lovers.  
First to arrive, emerging from the tower entrance, came the Commander. He nodded to the two Inquisition guards flanking the door, before seeing the place was empty.  
Placing himself down with all the regality and stature of an officer, Cullen announced, ‘What is that bastard up to now?’  
Blackwall had to physically withhold Dorian from standing up and casting the most ferocious fire spell he had in his repertoire, or perhaps cold, to freeze Cullen’s filthy mouth solid.  
However, Dorian didn’t require a spell. At that very moment, something else entirely had made the Commander stop and stiffen all over, trapped in a block of ice. From the opposite side of the gardens, behind the large vases growing the elegant crystal grace, stepped Merrill. Her face was a painting; all eyes glaring and eventually locking onto the Commander’s, sitting lonely in the centre of the courtyard. Cullen felt stuck; as if her gaze had placed him in a grip so tight it constricted his body from the slightest tremble. The only sign of life came from his leaping heart, feeling like it was going to explode from his chest. Cullen was not normally one for love-at-first sight encounters, but being a man of the Chantry, he had seen so many images of Andraste, and the Maker and divinities and myths from other cultures, and had always wondered what being in the presence of such a sacred being would be like. He realised he felt useless, a mere speck of dust in the midst of something so beautiful. She was everything Cullen had seen, and wished and wondered about, and he began to fall for her and for religion all over again.  
Merrill, on the other hand, was freaking out.  
‘My lady…’ The words that spilled from Cullen’s mouth surprised him and he looked shocked, hoping to the Maker that nothing else fell out of his gaping mouth.  
Merrill moved closer, in her mind she had all the elegance of a limp Bronto, but to Cullen she was floating on a cloud of magnificence. Eventually Cullen managed to break the force holding him in place like a tin soldier, just in time to remove the chair from her side and allow her to be seated. She could feel the his strength as she gliding under the stone table with the smoothest motion, and her mind leapt to all the training and battles he must have taken part in and his bravery and valour and all the scars that lined his naked tors-  
‘Druffalo.’  
Cullen’s eyes widened grotesquely. He knew eventually something was going to explode, either his heart ripping through his ribs, or his words. Unfortunately the words got there first. At least, the heart bursting on to the table would have been slightly more romantic, he thought.  
‘What about them? I love them. I haven’t seen one before, but we used to have a similar animal in my old clan, they used to come up really close and eventually you could teach them to sit. There was a boy in our clan who once taught one to jump over a fire and it was lovely, except it used to set the hairs on its belly on fire and it ran away.’  
Before Merrill could understand what she was saying the words were out too, and soon enough her eyes had enlarged to the same disturbingly large size as Cullen’s, and the pair just sat there staring at each other with bizarrely enlarged eyes both horrified by what they had both said and heard.  
Yet, after what seemed like the passing of an age, Cullen’s mouth began to twitch at the side, his face altering from shock to dawning realisation. The elf saw this smirk and began to smile, making her moon-shaped eyes seemingly disappear behind the squint of laughter. The commander then roared into laughter, causing the dalish girl to giggle with an uncontrolled ferocity.  
‘This is the strangest date I have ever seen. All Blondie’s said is “Druffalo” and suddenly they’re giggling like Chantry maids!’ whispered Varric from their first-floor hideout.  
Solas couldn’t help but be the first to comment, ‘Though I have found your games highly amusing, Tevinter, I am afraid you have played with power far beyond any of our control. Love cannot be wielded for your own pleasure, and I believe this,’ flicking a slender finger towards the hysterical couple, ‘is what they deserve for your trickery. You will get nothing, and they will get everything.’ And he passed, just as he had come, like a ship sailing in the deadest sea, with cutting silence.  
Dorian was just about ready to explode at Solas’ impatience and snobbish nature, when an idea fluttered into his mind and collided head-on with his genius. He slowly turned to Sera and whispered, ‘Fancy making this more interesting, my girl?’

An hour had passed, and with a little help from the drinks supplied by Bull, the evening was going brilliantly. The lovesick pair has been endlessly chatting about anything and everything, from Cullen’s recruit years – the story about the naked soldier always seemed to crop up – to Merrill’s inability to enjoy Spindleweed soup.  
‘But the saltiness brings out the flavour!’ roared the former Templar, gesticulating towards a guard to top up his glass, all without taking his eyes off the elven girl.  
‘Ew no! They used to have a similar dish at the Hanged Man and Varric said it was his favourite, but maker knows he’ll eat fried Snowfleur if he has to!’  
This remark snapped the bubbling tension on the secret terrace above. Varric began the vocal protestation,  
‘Oh for the love of Andraste, can you do it now? It is bad enough I have to listen to all the same stories again, but to hear them outright insulting my favourite food is just too much.’  
‘Patience my man, Sera said she needed to wait unti- There she is!’  
High above them on the opposite roof, Sera’s eyes glinted in the mirrored light of the moon. The crystal clear night had produced a spectacular show of stars, but Dorian was obviously annoyed that the night has bettered his attempt at a show on the garden floor. The elven rogue began to move from terrace to balcony, and back onto terrace with mute steps, all the while clearly pursuing something easily disturbed. The gang below watched as she, like a shadow of a cloud moving across Skyhold’s towers, skipped and leapt from level to level. Here they witnessed glimpses of the infamous Red Jenny, and Varric visualised her darting from noble house to noble house in the hunt for her next elite victim, with a price, and a target, on his head. He almost felt compelled to write this down; it was moving stuff. Sera, however, suddenly halted, perched precariously on a balcony edge, high above the sickening sweethearts beneath. Taking a single arrow, she drew the warbow across her chest, the enormous curvature belittling her slender frame. The viciousness of the release made the gathered group gasp, most of them only just releasing that they hadn’t been breathing since the elf had started her ascent across the silver tiles. The arrow struck something – even in the clarity of the night, the arrow was too fast to track – and the pair below swivelled suddenly, breaking off from the list of things Merrill would eat. Cullen immediately leapt to his feet, hand clasping the leather bound grip of his sword, all soldier sprawled across his face. Merrill turned in her chair to see the not-entirely lifeless body of a crow laying on one of the garden’s stone pathways. She clambered out of her chair and ran over to the bird, feelings its blood-soaked wings and the coldness as its life seeped away in her fingers. Cullen was soon beside her clutching the guilty weapon, an object he’d seen before and the culprit was fast on his lips. ‘That little bitc-‘  
Before Cullen could complete his profanity, red light shot from Merrill’s fingers. Her voice was low, but quiet, rising, rising all the while as she laid the bird back down, red light emanating from the crow’s gushing wound and a cut across the Dalish girl’s forearm. Cullen’s eyes scanned the scene; the profanity that was perched on his lips was now etched in his eyes. All the religious images of godly myths he had seen before as she entered the courtyard had disappeared, replaced by images of the victims and the memories of all those lost to this magic. Blood magic. He stepped back and with each step he could see the Circle Tower, the Harrowing Chamber, and Uldred and the commitment he had made to help, to stop, those out of control in the deep recesses of this devilish practice. His mind flashed from image to image, the Kirkwall Circle, those he had let down, the destruction of the Chantry, the rebellion from long ago. He clutched his head, dropping to his knees, ‘Stop this Merrill, stop this!’ Cullen’s voice rose to a scream, ‘Merrill, STOP THIS!’  
The girl turned, as the bird flapped up, full of life, off the cold ground and was greeted by the equally chilly night of the mountain air.  
‘Oh my! I’m so, so sorry!’  
Merrill scrambled across the floor to the Commander who was curled up in a shell of armour, like a child in a nightmare. ‘It was going to die, and I hate animals who are going to die, they are so helpless and I…’, her voice began to crack under the shock of realisation, ‘I am so helpful.’  
It had taken a Merrill a long time to accept that she was, indeed, useful. Ever since she had learnt of her abilities, abilities that were so commonly only used to destroy, abilities fondly known as outside the realms of conscious and control, she had been scared of them, of hurting others. The Champion of Kirkwall’s recruits had taught her, albeit not through necessarily normal means, that she was more than just the fear. She was the beauty in the fear. Ever since she had the letter from Varric asking for help, she couldn’t wait to do just that. Help. And somehow, through this ridiculous dream of an understanding man, she had encountered the very demon that was always keeping her back. Not the demon in her power, but the demon in her head. The demon that had been telling her she was something to be feared, not loved. She began to turn away, when that knowingly soft but assertive voice cut through the silence,  
‘It isn’t your fault. I just didn’t know.’  
Cullen rose from his position, the blood rushing through his normally deep, hazel eyes. ‘I have had a difficult past with… your magic, and it is difficult to…. I have lost so much to it.’  
The petite Dalish girl raced up to him and wrapped herself round him like a spell. She was never normally this forward, but this particular armour-clad commander looked like he needed a hug.  
‘I thought you knew! I never would have done that had somebody told me you used to be a Templar!’  
‘But I know you, Daisy. You’re not the kind to let ruthlessly-murdered sky vermin just die.’ If Cullen’s voice sounded already soothing, the rolling, yet rough, resonance of Varric Tethras’ voice was like a sound from home. The pair of lovers turned to the dwarf leaning up against the doorway, the blood from Merrill’s arm smearing Cullen‘s shimmering silver breastplate. Varric observed the line of blood cutting across the Commander’s chest and wrestled a grin, ‘You know,’ he started, ‘a friend once told me that I should never let my fears dictate what I do. It was all because of a cute dwarven barmaid I liked a while back, but that’s not important. What is, is that it led me here, to Skyhold, with you, and with that silly girl up there in the big house with the green thing on her hand. I let the fear of what my mistakes, and red lyrium, can do bring me here. I could have run, but the thing is about running is that it seems like a good idea, until you start doing it.’  
He paused, looking half proud of himself and half at the mage and the former Templar who were now locked back in each other’s dreamy eyes. After a moment of peace in the tumultuous maelstrom that had just occurred, the Commander asked,  
‘Druffalo?’  
He swung an indomitable arm and showed the way back to the table.  
The elven blood mage simply smiled and said, ‘As long as it isn’t Spindleweed soup, I’m happy. Or Fereldan omelette, or…’ and the two sauntered back over to the table to continue their meal under the stars.  
Varric chuckled. He turned back down the corridor, away from the garden and the sight of the love-locked pair far behind him. He whispered under his breath,  
‘Thanks, Champ. Can’t wait to see you soon.’  
Out of his leather-lined pocket, and unravelled out of his large, gloved hands, lay a token for a free drink from the Hanged Man that Hawke had won years back. The dwarf’s grizzled expression shone with nostalgia, and he trudged alone back down the stone corridor, and out of the glittering night.


End file.
